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Sky / Discovery Dispute

Full scale war breaks out - Peace reached with 4.5hrs to go, (January 2017)

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DV
dvboy
I can distinctly remember Sky calling the company ntl:Virgin when it had recently changed its name from ntl:Telewest to Virgin Media.
VM
VMPhil
I think it was something weird like 'ntl/Virgin'.
SP
Steve in Pudsey
Quite reasonably - although the branding was common the infrastructure wasn't with different EPG numbers in ex ntl and ex telewest areas.
HA
harshy Founding member
dbl posted:
Is the ticker only going out on the Sky feed? I've been checking on VM and there's been no sign of it.

There isn't a separate feed for providers (technically pointless), the ticker appears periodically.


So it's on Virgin as well?
DV
DVB Cornwall
Seems so, is on BT as well. Ludicrous for them to do anything other really, The message is clearly addressed to SKY customers so there's no issue really.
RE
Rex
Jonny posted:
They're not that new, they're just not as common as in the US. Sky and Virgin had a falling out with Sky's basic channels being removed from Virgin's platform for most of 2008

And a very public campaign involving the temporary renaming of the closed Sky channels' EPG slots as "Sky Sports Snooze", etc.

Was all rather childish.

Yes - Richard Branson got involved and told them to stop it: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2007/mar/02/bskyb.broadcasting1

Looking back, the dispute lasted far longer than I remembered it being. March 2007 - November 2008. These days, Sky runs specially made promotions with the Virgin Media logo and web address for Virgin viewers. How times have changed.

Old Sky Two Try Living - another classic. Ironically Living morphed into a sister channel of Sky1 and the then new Atlantic four years on.
The whole dispute between Sky and Virgin actually did lead the latter to strengthen their own channel lineup though - but their losses caused them to sell off on-core assets. VMTV was one of them - and signified how Virgin placed less importance in their TV service. Until recently, with their ad campaigns and the launch of the excellent and much improved V6 box.
LL
Larry the Loafer
dbl posted:
Is the ticker only going out on the Sky feed? I've been checking on VM and there's been no sign of it.

There isn't a separate feed for providers (technically pointless), the ticker appears periodically.


Don't Sky do it with VM? I've watched Sky 1 before and they've advertised Sky services "exclusively for Virgin Media customers".
SP
Steve in Pudsey
Presumably targeting the ticker specifically would be technically difficult? Does Virgin currently take an off air satellite feed or is it a line feed from playout?

I guess if they were able to super the ticker downstream of pres (at short notice) it would be a compliance headache requiring as separate recording of output for OFCOM purposes?
DV
dvboy
I believe Sky produce separate feeds of their channels for Virgin customers (and IIRC separate Freeview feeds of Pick, Challenge and Sky News) with tailored trailers, but Discovery Networks do not, they send the same feed to all platforms (I would have thought taking an off air satellite feed would be considered not reliable enough).
SP
Steve in Pudsey
Certainly it used to be that it was off air from satellite, and analogue terrestrial channels via a high quality aerial at the local head end. There was an occasion many years ago when Astra had a meltdown of some sort on a Saturday evening and most of the channels on cable (I think it was digital by this time) disappeared too.
OR
orange
I wonder if they'd keep the Quest slot and do what they did with ITV back in the day and put in the Programming info 'For Quest press TV then 37'
LL
Larry the Loafer
Wouldn't that help boost Quest's viewership and aid Discovery's argument about how popular they are? I'm assuming they didn't worry about that with ITV, because despite the circumstances, they didn't want it to seem like they're revolutionary digital system didn't have a terrestrial channel.

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